I upgraded from my 15 year old PC to one of the new Mac Minis at Xmas last year, thinking that I would be fine for gaming with my Xbox / Game Pass, and I would “skip a generation” on PC hardware. I have a small Steam / Epic library, but everything that didn’t work on MacOS, I had a Game Pass version of.
Fast forward a year. Xbox shit itself, RAM and GPU prices / 2026 outlook are dismal, etc etc
What’s my best option going forward for gaming? The only option I see right now is cloud gaming like GeForceNOW, but it seems like such a ripoff.
Any advice?
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Steam Deck is the answer for now. You may still be able to get one of the discontinued LCD models on the cheap, but GamePass is now as expensive as buying a game every month, so it’s better to buy than subscribe. They also make excellent PCs and homelab devices. We bought several LCD versions for the lab instead of Pi 5s, because they are such a good deal.
Play old games, I guess? Arc Raiders is one of the only new games I’ve played in a long time. Recently got an Xbox one to play the golden age cod games.
Switching to Bazzite (a Linux Distro, made for gaming). No Ragrets so far
I don’t think bazzite runs on ARM macs.
It looks like it doesn’t support ARM architecture systems at all, or anything other than x86_64.
https://docs.bazzite.gg/Gaming/Hardware_compatibility_for_gaming/
Minimum System Requirements
- Architecture: x86_64
Yeah, I figured that hadn’t changed, but was too lazy to actually look up the source, thanks for adding it.
However, with box64 you can emulate x86_64 on arm, however I think macs don’t have the gpu integration. Crazy thing is on some phones with snapdragon chips you can emulate games up to cyberpunk 2077 decently well.
I don’t know what I can tell you.
I’m one of those patient gamers, where I’m just happy I finally have a machine that can play about 89% of the games I have to throw at it. Moreso happier that it can confidently run PS2 emulation, something I’ve been chasing for years to have a machine that can do, to own anyways.
I think you just need to sit down and contemplate to yourself what you want out of a machine. It’s not a good healthy mindset to be fretting about upgrading all of the time. I mean, you made a huge leap already going from 15 years to what you have now.
Also consider that, there will still be games released that look graphically demanding and everything, but will require maybe a 1060 GPU, just as an example. Probably 8GB of RAM. It’s only the AAA stuff that wants everything to be tip-top shape. Don’t chase those.
This is honestly the healthiest take, there are just a lot of games currently out that I want to play but have no way to.
Space Marine 2, KCD2, Stalker 2, etc etc etc
It’s just been a good year to be a single player gamer, and I wanna get in on it. 🤷♂️
The good news is that single-player games tend to age well. Down the line, the bugs are as fixed as they’re gonna be. Any expansions are done. Prices may be lower. Mods may have been created. Wikis may have been created. You have a pretty good picture of what the game looks like in its entirety. While there are rare cases that games are no longer available some reason or break on newer OSes with no way to make them run, that’s rare.
With (non-local) multiplayer games, one has a lot less flexibility, since once the crowd has moved on, it’s moved on.
What’s my best option going forward for gaming?
Probably the same as always: look for a good deal on a used PC. Or buy all the used components and slot them together. The former is usually a better value.
I turned 360 degrees around and installed bazzite
Probably a steam deck as they are yet to be hit by the mega price hikes.
Once they are, abandon any thoughts of gaming for a while I guess.
This is only going one way until the ai bubble bursts.
you are seriously limited on the selection of games you can play with Apple silicon
Does Proton even work on Macs? It seems pretty clear at this point Linux is a far better gaming OS.
Nope, that would be FEX. And support for Apple Silicon is currently on the roadmap. So maybe in a couple of years.
From an colleague of mine, who bought an M1 Macbook Pro when they were new; he told me that there was a Wine fork (don’t know the name sadly) for Apple silicon which kinda worked with most (older) Steam games, not as nice as Proton on x86-64 Linux, but good enough for his game tastes. Don’t know if it’s still maintained or not…
Take a break. Go outside. Enjoy nature.
Get a Steam Deck? You can hook it up like a PC, use it sat around. Though its not a powerhouse. Wait and see how the Steam Machine fairs? There’s still a good second hand market for parts too.
Its a shitty time at the moment with scumbag companies and AI, so consumers are completely fucked.
Also: Fuck subscriptions.
Plus the game pass versions of games are complete dogshit compared to the Steam versions most of the time.Steam Machine will be priced “like a PC” so, not really a solution either.
Game Pass sounds great, but the average game play time is ~2 weeks. You’re paying $240–480/year to skim the surface of multiple games.
That’s a lot for what is essentially a demo experience. There are better ways to approach gaming.
Check Craigslist, FB Marketplace, Letgo–just general classifieds. Can generally find decent deals on 1 to 2 generation old PCs, especially if you’re near a US Military installation or college.
Edit: just checked Boulder’s CL–10700k, 3080, 32GB RAM, 1TB SSD, and 850w PSU and a 27in, 1440p, IPS Monitor for $1000
Check craig’s list and FB market place for used parts and hardware. Did you save your old PC? You could still play older titles with it as well as some newer indie games that don’t need lots of processing power. If a new PC is a must, purchase the parts as you can afford them then assemble the machine once you have what you need.
The moment Game Pass wouldn’t let me cheese the system and get it for like $1-2 a month, I quit bothering with it. I knew they were trying to get people hooked and raise prices. It was only like a year later and then even my friends canceled theirs.
I buy games heavily on sale, or sail the seas.
Luckily my gaming PC is more than good enough to ride out the next 5 years. knocks on wood. 5800X3D + 6800 XT.
For anyone else cross your fingers the GabeCube isn’t too expensive $$$.
I’ve consistently refused to buy in to Game Pass. I still buy physical games where available. If it’s only digital, I’ll get the Steam version for my Steam Deck.
I wish I didn’t go all in on digital, but then the space not taken up by physical media (in my case, >1,000 games) is also valuable to me. I’ll have to settle for keeping copies of whatever isn’t DRM locked, and obtain pirated cracked versions of whatever is.
